Repertoires of Repair: Managing Ontological Insecurity During the COVID-19 Pandemic - Incite at Columbia University

Ryan Hagen and Denise Milstein, sociologists at Columbia University’s Department of Sociology, drew on 115 interviews from New York City’s first pandemic wave (COVID-19). The study examines how people restored their sense of continuity and control.

Hagen and Milstein introduce the concept of repertoires of repair to describe strategies for rebuilding stability in times of crisis, and identify two main modes of repair: cognitive grounding and agentic enactment. Their analysis reveals that ontological security, the feeling of trust in the stability of one’s environment, is not a fixed psychological state but an ongoing social achievement. Hagen and Milstein challenges sociology's habit of focusing solely on moments of change instead of the cultural work required to maintain continuity.

Access the study's archive here.